Space and Energy: Four forces

What does the world consist of?

Scientists have proven that the world is made up of thirteen blocks. However, our daily world is made only by three of these thirteen blocks – the up quark, the down quark, and the electron. In combination, they can make neutrons and protons, atoms, and molecules.

The electron neutrino makes the first set of four building blocks. Nature replicates the first set quarks and leptons and thus produces six quarks and six leptons which have increasing mass. The sixth quark has a smaller size than the proton, but it is as heavy as a gold atom.

Practically it is hard to prove that there are other quarks and leptons, but theoretically, there may be other building blocks. Some of them may be the reason for the speculations of the existence of dark matter. This matter remains a mystery, and it will take researchers a lot of years to identify it.

The four forces

There are four primary types of forces that function among particles: strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravitational:

Thanks to the strong force protons, neutrons, and other related particles stick together;

The electromagnetic energy makes electrons join together to form atoms;

The weak one helps massive particles to decay into smaller parts;

The force that plays the most crucial role in our daily life is the gravitational one. It works between massive objects;

All the different particles exchange energy between each other through exchanging bosons. The bosons carry small amounts of energy from one particle to another. Its bosons characterize each force:

The gluon describes the strong force – it glues quarks together;

The photon carries the electromagnetic force and transmits light;

The W and Z bosons characterize the weak force, and they are responsible for different types of decays;

Scientists have not yet proven, but they assume that the gravitational force may also be related to a boson particle. It is called a graviton. However, it is tough to observe this boson as the gravitational force is considered to be much weaker than the other three ones.

The Higgs Field

The Higgs field is a mechanism through which the particles gain mass. The boson associated with this field is called the Higgs boson. If the Higgs field didn’t exist, it wouldn’t be possible for atoms to form. This fact would practically mean that there wouldn’t be chemistry, biology, or even life.

The Higgs field consists of big molasses. When our familiar particles move through the universe, they stick to these molasses, which makes them slower and much heavier. The function of the Higgs boson is to transmit the mass-giving force of the Higgs field.

Antimatter

Researchers have proven that antimatter is as real as matter. They have discovered that for every particle, there is an existing antiparticle which looks and functions in almost the same way. However, they have the opposite properties of the particles. For example, the proton has a positive charge, but the antiproton has a negative charge. Antimatter has proven to be challenging to store.